Lisa Jackson yesterday announced the EPA's finding that carbon emissions threatened the U.S. via global warming and were thus covered under the Clean Air Act. She plans to implement tough new fuel economy restrictions and new restrictions on manufacturing and power businesses. (Source: The Detroit News)

The findings give ammo to President Obama's plan to crack down on polluting vehicles. Under the plan by 2016 automakers will have to achieve a fleetwide efficiency of 34.1 mpg or face steep fines. (Source: Dugan Racing)

Is our lifestyle threatening our planet? The EPA thinks so.

Climate change has taken on the
trappings of high drama. Recent leaked
climate emails are threatening to discredit much of the work of a
significant UK climate center by suggesting manipulation of the peer
review process and falsification of data and advocates of warming are
pointing to countless other studies worldwide and suggesting that the
time for action is now. In Copenhagen, world
climate talks have began.

And it appears one way or
another the U.S. is going to get tough on emissions. President
Obama recently promised to cut U.S. emissions by 83 percent by 2050.
Yesterday, the EPA announced that it would be moving to bypass
Congress and implement the foundation of such cuts.

Currently
a global warming bill that would implement a carbon trading scheme --
the plan to cut emissions endorsed by President Obama -- has passed
the House, but is stuck in a deadlocked Senate with the vote
drawn largely on partisan lines. An alternate route has
emerged, to push through climate regulations, though. The
foundation of this approach stems from a 2007 Supreme Court ruling
that global warming was covered by the previously passed Clean Air
Act.

The EPA has been evaluating this claim and
yesterday
announced that its "endangerment finding" revealed that
carbon emissions were indeed a threat
to the nation's health and covered under the clean air act.
Describes
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, "This long-overdue finding
cements 2009's place in history as the year when the United States
government began seriously addressing the challenge of greenhouse gas
pollution. [Greenhouse gases] are the primary driver of climate
change, which can lead to hotter, longer heat waves that threaten the
health of the sick, poor or elderly; increases in ground-level ozone
pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses."

The
agency's plans to implement new rules to combat this "threat'
are now being aired.

The biggest immediate impact of the
decision will be its role in enabling the fuel economy mandates
delivered by President Obama. Under the mandates, large
automakers will need to implement fleetwide efficiency of 34.1 mpg by
2016. That provision is expected to cost the automakers $60B
USD. The plan will essentially push California's emissions
targets onto the entire nation. Advocates say the efficiency
upgrade is long overdue. Critics, though, complain that it will
damage an already sick industry.

Similar criticisms exist
about the other half of the EPA's action plan -- its plan to regulate
greenhouse gases from the power and manufacturing industries.
Some argue that this will result in higher power costs and the
movement of manufacturing business overseas to countries like China
that do not yet regulate greenhouse emissions.

Jeff Holmstead,
EPA air administrator from 2001-05, during the Bush administration,
delivered mixed praise for the initiatives. He states, "[The
decision is a] necessary prerequisite for the regulation of
greenhouse gases from cars, trucks, businesses, factories, farms, and
potentially even apartment buildings, schools, and hospitals.
The hard part is still to come. EPA now has to figure out how it will
regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act without undermining
the fragile economic recovery."

Robert Meyers, who led
the EPA air and radiation office under President George W. Bush,
comments that the EPA is approaching the point of no return when it
comes to implementing regulation. He comments, "The main
event is to come. EPA indicates that new rules will be issued
starting next spring. It will be very difficult to turn back, much
less undo all that will be done."

Some businesses and
lobbies have threatened to sue the EPA to try to block any new
regulations, should they be put into place.

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So basically she's saying that emitting Carbon Dioxide and Water to the atmosphere (greenhouse gases) somehow creates ground level Ozone (a pollutant that was previously regulated.) That doesn't sound like science to me; that sounds like alchemy.

Either that or she's exploiting scientific ignorance to get people to think that somehow carbon dioxide causes asthma...

Given those two choices Lisa Jackson is clearly an idiot or a liar, or perhaps both.

She's saying it's the same sort of thing, but I have to say I disagree with her.

The Clean Air act really isn't the appropriate vehicle for reducing CO2, because you can't say that CO2 is "dirty" or a pollutant, and it certainly doesn't directly affect the health off people who breath air with slightly more CO2 in it.

I do want to see a reduction in the amount of CO2 we produce, just not sure this is the right way to go about it.

You want to see a reduction in the amount of CO2 we produce? I've got an idea, why don't we have everyone who thinks CO2 reduction is important hold their breath? Problem solved. While we're at it, why don't we attach catalytic converters to cows.

They don't even care about pollution. Their real goal is extending their control over all aspects of our lives. They're just using the best vehicles for that job (pollution/global warming, health care, economic stimulus, fear).